Child from Home

by John Wright

  At other times Kitty read us stories from Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and The Arabian Nights, that told of wicked giants, flitting fairies, fearsome ogres, and fire-breathing dragons. There were men in turbans wearing slippers that curled up at the toes and huge genies that came out of oil lamps, and little children got lost in deep forests and were in danger of being eaten up by gnarled old witches. Our reactions to them told Kitty much about us and the tales helped us to learn right from wrong.

  In the cosy warmth of the day-room I felt loved and secure, but some of the tales frightened and thrilled me at the same time. I would sit there wide-eyed, totally engrossed and enraptured by Kitty’s lilting and mesmerising voice as her stories weaved their magic spell. From that time on – in my mind – I was able to transport myself into enchanted realms as she had given me the key that opened the door to hidden treasures.

  The room across the landing contained several small camp beds, each with a feather-filled pillow and a straw-filled palliasse. There were white cotton sheets and warm woollen blankets on every bed and the row of tall, narrow windows were shuttered against the fury of the raging tempest. The regular routine of The Settlement Nursery School was continued here and we were kissed and tucked up in bed for a nap every day after our midday meal, which we ate at the tiny tables in the day-room. We always called it dinner and never lunch because we had been brought up to believe that only posh people called the midday meal lunch or luncheon. Every time we turned over in our little beds the hooked wire springs made a metallic, twanging sound and this, of course, encouraged us to try to outdo each other to see who could make the most noise until we got a telling off.

  Sometimes, after Kitty had read scary stories to us, I could not get them out of my mind, and I was reluctant to be laid down. The low, dancing flame of the paraffin lamps threw out a soft light and had a distinctive smell, but the guttering candle threw grotesque, shifting shadows and, where they were deepest, I thought I saw horrible monsters and weird phantoms lurking, flitting and floating. Stifling my terrified whimpers I would curl up under the bedclothes and try to shut them out. Were they the product of an overactive mind or due to some trick created by the light and shade?

  Upstairs in the main house, there was a spacious bathroom with a large white-enamelled bath enclosed within highly polished, wooden side panels, and in its capacious depths Kitty and Mary bathed us every night. Kitty always dipped her elbow in it to check that the water temperature was not too hot and one child was bathed while another was being dried. We were then put to bed, either in the large downstairs dormitory in the west wing of the house, or in a smaller room above the kitchen, in which Kitty slept. Here she was able to keep an eye on four children – usually those that required more care or supervision than the rest. I enjoyed the climb up the narrow, back staircase to that little bedroom, and I liked sleeping there, as I always felt more comfortable and secure with her around. The room had once been used as living quarters for the maids that worked in the grandeur of the old country house.

  At bath times, Kitty and Mary had been told by Miss Thorne to examine our heads for lice and to check our bodies for signs of scabies. This happened more often after a puny little child arrived from a slum area of Middlesbrough where he had contracted scabies after sharing a bed with an infected person. He was showing the classic symptoms of the nasty and unsightly, contagious skin disease that was quite common in those days. It was caused by a female parasite, the itch mite. Skin eruptions occur in the webs of the fingers, on the wrists and buttocks and in the groin. The little boy was kept apart from us to prevent the disease spreading and was given hot baths in a small bathroom off the downstairs passageway. Kitty had to scrub his back and buttocks to lay open the lesions and we could hear him crying pitifully throughout this painful process. But she had to be cruel to be kind and, had it not been done, further complications could have arisen. A yellow emulsion was then very gently applied and the messy stuff covered a good part of the skinny boy’s little body from the neck downwards. Her heart went out to him, but the disease was caught early enough to prevent impetigo and he soon recovered.

  By Halloween the rains eased a little and were succeeded by thick clinging white mists that often lingered all day. The trees of my ‘enchanted forest’ looked spooky in the dim, dreary light and the bushes became indistinct and assumed nebulous and ghostly shapes. The raw, chilly fogs that shrouded the damp and drearily dripping forest were known locally as ‘roaks’. Kitty and Rosemary entertained us with games using apples suspended on a string, which we tried to bite, or we played at apple bobbing where we tried to get one from a barrel of water using only our mouths. Kitty dressed us up as witches, ghouls, ghosts and vampires and made lanterns from hollowed-out turnips. It was scary in the darkness of the bothy with the lights out and we were glad when they lit the candles.

  I felt sad on seeing the number of trees that had been brought down by the gales as I looked on the fallen giants as my friends. On the afternoon of 5 November the gardener built us a bonfire from tree cuttings and deadwood, and Mam told me that, ‘In the distant past bones were burned to ward off evil spirits, hence the name “bonfires”.’

  We were only allowed to have a fire during the hours of daylight and the fallen softwood branches and twigs, known locally as ‘kids’, spat and burned well due to the resin in them. Once the fire was well established we roasted jacket potatoes and the delicious, golden butter dripped down onto our chins and bibs. The fire had to be put out before dusk. We then sat in the semi-darkness of the bothy and watched wide-eyed as Kitty lit sparklers and a small box of indoor fireworks that were the Stancliffe family’s leftovers from the previous year. Soon all fireworks were banned completely.

  Kitty was well able to cope with most of our childish problems and small emergencies and she had an uncanny knack of knowing when things were troubling us. She started getting us up to go to the toilet during the night, thus greatly reducing the bed-wetting. The weak and pitiful little boy (the runt of his family) who had had scabies used to tremble and shake on being taken from his bed during the chilly nights and Kitty felt so sorry for him. She would often wrap a warm blanket round his thin little body and hug him close until he settled, and she lavished on him that little bit of extra love and attention that she knew we all so desperately needed.

  With the air heavy with the odours of cabbage and onions, we would often catch sight of Mam in the kitchen amid great clouds of steam. There was a constant clatter of pots and pans, and rich, fragrant smells of tasty, savoury stews often assailed our nostrils making our mouths water. As she baked fresh bread and cakes, her hands were often white with flour and we came to associate her presence with the aroma of lovely food. More often than not, when I saw her she was smiling and she had a way of tilting her head as she spoke. She was to stay with us for just a few short, precious weeks and, as the time for her to leave drew near, there was a deep sadness in her speech, which is often the case before a parting. Her face was often red and blotchy from crying but we never saw the tears that undoubtedly dripped into the stew.

  Mam knew that we were being well fed and looked after and had settled in well, and that pleased her, but sadly for George and me, she was obliged to go. On the day of her departure there was much hugging and crying on both sides and she tried to hide her tears, but I could see the slight movement of her throat as she swallowed them. She was unable to afford the rent on Keldy Cottage for any length of time even though she had managed to sublet our house in Middlesbrough while she was away. But she now felt that she should be there when Dad got a forty-eight hour pass, as the train journeys were too slow for him to come here. Her doubts and fears remained unspoken and we were told much later that leaving us had broken her heart, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she had done the right thing in getting us away to safety.

  That was the bad news. The good news was that my pal Eric had rejoined us, as for some reason he had failed to settle, and I was delighted that h
e was back. Eric’s mother Winifred, who Mam knew quite well, said to her, ‘Rosedale Abbey is in a lovely setting but it’s bleak and remote. Eric was billeted at a big house and I had a letter from there. It said that Eric was a nice little fellow and the woman asked for his birth certificate. During the recent wet spell she asked me to send him a pair of Wellington boots. He was thrilled to bits at the thought of wearing them, as he said he would now be able to help her to get the ducks in. That Sunday they had duck for dinner and he asked her if it came from Albert Park in Middlesbrough. That was the only place that he had ever seen ducks before.’

  Not long afterwards, as we were playing outside on our tricycles, the garage doors were stood open and Mr Bentley – Mrs Stancliffe’s chauffeur – was polishing the car. At that point something caught our attention and we dashed off to see what was happening, but Eric had forgotten his trike and left it by the garage doors. He was devastated to find that the car had backed out and flattened it.

  We were told by Miss Thorne that, if the Germans came, they might use ‘nasty smells to make us feel ill’ and we had to practise putting on our newly issued Mickey Mouse gas masks. They had a bright red rubber bit at the front and the circular eyepieces had blue rims but some of the children were frightened of them and hated the choking, claustrophobic feeling and the rubbery smell. Eric and I thought it was just a funny game and we collapsed in fits of giggling when the red floppy bit fluttered as we breathed in and out.

  There were large storerooms and wine cellars beneath the house, which were reached by a flight of stone steps behind a doorway in the kitchen. The cellars, with their whitewashed walls, were always cool during both the summer and the winter, and many foods, such as cheeses, apples, salted sides of ham and jars of preserves, were stored down there. There were no fridges in those days and eggs were preserved in buckets of isinglass, a kind of gelatine that was obtained from fish. Kitty assured us that if we were bombed or attacked from the air we would be quite safe down there. However, I always had an illogical fear of what might lurk in the darkness behind that spooky cellar door.

  In mid-December it turned bitterly cold with severe frosts. The muddy ruts of the forest paths became as solid as rock and light snow flurries drifted down from time to time. On duty the nursery assistants wore a thin, floral-patterned cotton housecoat that buttoned up at the front to protect their everyday clothes, but it didn’t keep them warm and these ‘uniforms’ had to be bought with the money that they managed to save from their meagre wages.

  In the run-up to Christmas thoughts of home crowded in and Kitty kept us occupied to take our minds off them. We coloured in strips of paper, which we then made into links using a paste made from flour and water until we had a long chain. Kitty hung these up in the bothy day-room along with the colourful strings of twisted tissue paper. We beamed with pride when the staff hung up the paper lanterns that we had helped to colour and glue.

  The stairwell was wide and deep enough to hold a seventeen-foot-tall Norway spruce from the forest and it was decorated using cotton wool as snow and a fairy was placed on the top. On it we hung a few of the long, light-brown, spruce tree cones that we had collected during our forest walks. We were lucky, but many families had to do without Christmas trees that year, as all timber was now badly needed for the war effort. We painted Christmas scenes and Kitty pinned them up on the walls and we repeatedly asked her, ‘How many days is it to Christmas?’ We were so excited and impatient for Father Christmas to come.

  When Christmas Eve, which was on a Sunday, arrived at Sutherland Lodge, Mam paid us a short visit, but Dad was not able to get leave from the army and, unseen by us, she left presents with the nursery staff. At bedtime we excitedly climbed the wide, plush-carpeted staircase to our dormitory and hung our woollen socks from the mantlepiece above the fireplace. A small glass of ginger wine and a sugared mince pie were left on the tiled hearth for Father Christmas but, due to an excess of excitement, it took much longer than usual to get to sleep and we tried too hard. Kitty had said, ‘The sooner you go to sleep the quicker the morning will come,’ but to no avail. We had tried to be good in the days leading up to Christmas, as Miss Thorne had told us, ‘Santa Claus brings bags of cinders to children who have been naughty.’

  Eventually – on that night of all nights – he must have crept up on us unnoticed, for when we awoke on that most wonderful day of the year we saw that the glass and plate were empty. Santa Claus had been! What other proof did you need? Kitty rubbed our faces and wiped the remnants of gritty sand from our eyes with a warm, damp flannel and, full of childish glee, we emptied our bulging socks on the coverlets. George and I had a few sweets and nuts, an orange (still available at that time), a bar of milk chocolate and a big, shiny, rosy-red apple. Huddled over our presents, I found that I had a popgun and some brightly painted lead soldiers and George got a colouring book and crayons. Christmas morning’s magic never failed to thrill us.

  The rationing of food hadn’t started yet; therefore Dinner Lady was able to cook us a huge and delicious roast goose for our Christmas dinner and we had slices of it with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, and thick, rich, steaming gravy in the bothy. We sat on tiny, rail-backed chairs at low tables covered with green-checked gingham cloths where we pulled crackers and drank lemonade. The main course was followed by hot, rich plum pudding with lashings of steaming hot custard. But George and I missed our Mam and Dad terribly on this, our first Christmas away from home, even though the staff did their utmost to try to take our minds off it. It never entered our self-centred minds that the nursery assistants, who were also far from home, might also be missing their parents.

  We were too excited to sleep when we were tucked in for our afternoon nap and we were so delighted when Father Christmas came to our tea party. We never suspected that he was actually Lol Bentley, the chauffeur and odd-job man who was the husband of old Spaven’s daughter and lived in the big house across the field. The Christmas tree was now fully decorated. The staff had hung up the little parcels we had made earlier, along with shiny baubles and strings of silver tinsel, and under it were the presents from our parents.

  We were given presents from Santa’s sack and every child was handed a toy or a book. We wore paper hats and played games by the roaring log fire. We gorged ourselves on cheese and biscuits, hot mince pies, cakes, sweets and crisps, and had a slice of the white-iced Christmas cake, until we were near to bursting. We laughed and giggled uncontrollably when Eric burped loudly after drinking too much gassy lemonade. Old Spaven’s grandson and the two teenaged Ward girls who lived at Kelton Banks farmhouse came and joined in with our games and carol singing.

  Our photograph was taken, and I was all eyes when the man ejected the burnt-out flash bulb. We sat on low wooden chairs and I was behind my friend Eric, who held his new cowboy pistol. Eric was two months younger than me, but he was tall and well built for his age and I thought that he must be older than me as I was at that stage of development when children judge age by height. I reasoned that adults are taller than we are, therefore, that makes them older. Our George was safely ensconced in the arms of Miss Waters and Kitty stood next to her holding the hands of Mary who was kneeling on the carpet in front of her. We had a lovely Christmas in the company of people we loved and who loved us in return.

  The whole of January 1940 was bitterly cold, with snow falling thick and fast and the ground frozen rock hard. We had dense, freezing mists as an exceptionally cold wave gripped the whole of Europe and the snow lay deep on all the rooftops. The windows were often covered with intricate, lace-like frost patterns and there was even a thin layer of ice on the inside of the glass at times. The bare branches and twigs of the deciduous trees were pure white and were three times thicker than normal due to the frozen snow that coated them. The woodland birds were twice their normal size due to their feathers being puffed out to retain body heat; with their heads tucked under their wings they looked like little fluffy balls. Many did not survive the cut
ting Arctic winds of that long harsh winter when temperatures as low as −2°F were recorded in the area. We overheard Tommy Gibson telling Miss Waters that, ‘One of our bombers was so affected by the thickness and the weight of ice on its wings that it crashed three miles away on the moors over by Spaunton.’

  The icy wind wailed as it whipped through the trees and the tops of the conifers rocked and lashed about wildly. We were kept indoors, cosy and warm, as a huge spruce log crackled and spat in the grate throwing out blue and yellow flames that licked around it and roared up the wide chimney. The Reverend Illingworth, the vicar of Cropton and Middleton, had some difficulty in reaching us through the deep snowdrifts. After we had sung a hymn, he asked us to close our eyes and put our hands together to pray for the thousands of British soldiers and airmen, who, he said, ‘are having to endure atrocious weather conditions of frost and deep snow as they prepare to defend France and the Low Countries from an expected German attack. The training is going badly as their gun mechanisms, their lorries and they themselves are frozen stiff as quite often a foot of snow falls overnight.’ Uncle John was among them, and the vicar said a prayer which went, ‘Pray for all who serve in the Allied forces by sea and land and air; pray for the peoples invaded and oppressed; for the wounded and for the prisoners. Remember before God the fallen, and those who mourn their loss.’ We were too young and full of the joy of life to really understand what it was all about.

  The walnut-encased wireless that sat on a shelf in the kitchen was often on and its fretted speaker was carved in the shape of a sun and sunbeams. On it Kitty heard that the River Thames had frozen over for the first time in sixty years and, during slight thaws, when winter deigned to ease its icy grip, huge icicles hung like long daggers from the eaves. We were only allowed outside for short spells, wearing our warm Melton coats, knitted mufflers, woollen balaclava hats and Wellington boots. In Middlesbrough we would never have had a hope of possessing such warm, top quality overcoats, which had been bought with funds raised by generous-hearted benefactors.